(PG-13)
1 Star

I find Scary Movie 4 very frightening. And I’m beginning to really wonder about the people who make these movies — just as I wonder about the millions of Americans who think this crap is funny. If I can play pop psychologist for a moment, the Scary Movies directed by David Zucker (Airplane, Naked Gun) reveal a not-so-latent disdain for children, the elderly and infirm, African-American people and for its own audience.

What’s so funny about a little girl’s head getting slammed in a car door? Or a comatose woman sponge bathed in her own urine? Or a retarded man playing with his snot? Or black people reduced to sex-and-bling-crazed stereotypes?

I love gross stuff as much as anybody else. I love dark comedy. I appreciate people taking risks in their politically incorrect comedic shots. But parody, at its core, is about bursting the bubble of the over-inflated. When this movie works, it is doing just that. Pompous targets like Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise and President Bush deserve well-stuck daggers. An anonymous little girl with a neglectful dad doesn’t.

Scary Movie 4 starts with Dr. Phil and ends with Oprah. Maybe that’s the key to figuring out why this movie happened. Every day, a huge number of Americans sit and watch a non-stop horror show called daytime TV.

They are entertained by hatred, by death, by abuse, by luridness without compassion. They really enjoy it — just as they enjoy this movie. Now that’s scary.